1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a metal-containing resin particle, a resin particle, an electronic circuit substrate, and a method of producing the electronic circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, when producing an electronic circuit substrate, a conductor pattern is formed by performing resist coating on a thin metal film, exposure, development, etching, and the like (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. Hei 7-263841). However, this method requires exposure masks for respective layers, the design and production thereof require a plenty of time and cost. Besides, when alternation, modification or the like of the exposure masks becomes necessary, a great influence is exerted upon the time of delivery or costs of the electronic circuit substrate.
Because of these disadvantages, a method of forming an electronic circuit substrate by printing using electrophotography is proposed instead of the above method. In this method, an underlying layer for electroless plating having an arbitrary pattern is first prepared by using electrophotography with a metal-containing resin particle. A plating layer is formed on the underlying layer by electroless plating, and an insulating layer is formed by electrophotography using resin particles made of resin only, so that an electronic circuit substrate is formed.
Incidentally, in order to accurately form an underlying layer and an insulating layer by electrophotography, it is necessary to control the amount of electrostatic charge of metal-containing resin particles and resin particles. Here, considering heat resistance, thermosetting resin mainly composed of an epoxy resin is used for both the resin of the metal-containing resin particles and the resin particles containing resin only. However, since epoxy radicals are easy to absorb moisture due to its high hydrophilic nature, there is a problem in that the electrical resistance of the surfaces of the metal-containing resin particles and the resin particles is lowered, and the desired amount of electrostatic charge is difficult to obtain.